Today's Sports

BOILING SPRING LAKES—Methodist University in Fayetteville has one of the best sports medicine programs in the state. On Friday, Michael Collin Bruton, whose interests lie in that area, signed a letter of intent to play football for that university.

Bruton, a bruising 6-foot-2, 235-pound offensive tackle helped lead the Cougars to more than 4,000 yards on offense and more than 40 points per game. The starting left tackle was awarded, along with his fellow offensive linemen, the game ball just before the first game of the playoffs.

WHITEVILLE—The league-leading Brunswick Community College baseball team finished 1-2 in a three-game weekend series at second-place Southeaster Community College.

BCC split two games Saturday, losing 5-4 and winning 10-6. On Sunday, BCC lost 5-4. BCC left series in first place in Region 10. BCC is 14-4 (25-14); SCC is 14-6 (26-15).

BCC is contending for its first Region 10 championship. It has Region games left on April 22 at Catawba Valley (10-5 entering the weekend), April 23 at Stanly (7-8) and April 30-May 1 at home with Danville (1-14).

This was a Saturday-evening phone call no coach or athletics director wants to receive. So when asked his thoughts about Marcus Hankins as a football player, South Brunswick High School Athletics Director Chris Roehner paused for a moment, cleared his throat and tried to speak, but he became silent.

BOILING SPRING LAKES—The North Brunswick boys’ track and field team won its eighth straight conference championship April 14, winning 11 of 18 events.

“We had some events we thought we’d do better in that we didn’t, and we had we did a little better in some than we thought we would,” North track coach Garry Bishop said. “We faltered in some early events. Some guys stepped up and pulled us through.”

BOILING SPRING LAKES—With five first-place victories, the West Brunswick girls’ track and field team won the Waccamaw Conference championship by four points April 14 at South Brunswick. This was West’s first conference title since 2000. (It won a regional in 2003.)

For several weeks, I looked forward to the Monday after the Masters Tournament like a little kid looking forward to the circus. The word circus is a good, complimentary term here, not like “media circus” or even a reference to “what the heck are those clowns in Washington doing?”